Kofu Incident: A Creepy Alien Got off a UFO to a Vineyard and Tapped a Japanese Boy on the Shoulder in 1975 [Part 3]

2023/2/212023/3/20

Physical Evidence Supporting the Kofu Incident

Field Investigation Report by School Teachers at the UFO Landing Site After the Incident

The day after the incident, Monday, February 24, 1975, Masato and Katsuhiro went to their classroom at Yamashiro Elementary School in Kofu City and told their classmates about the incident last night.

Masato and Katsuhiro even drew portraits of aliens and the UFO, and the whole school was in an uproar. After hearing the whole story of their strange experience from Masato and Katsuhiro, their homeroom teacher, Miyoshi Ueda, returned to the staff room to discuss the matter with the other teachers.

The above image is for illustration purposes only.

Miyoshi then had Masato and Katsuhiro take her to the vineyard where they claimed the UFO had landed, in order to conduct a field investigation during their lunch break.

According to the two boys, there is a slight depression near the center of the vineyard, which they say is the remains of the UFO’s landing gear. In addition, one of the concrete pillars supporting the grape vines was broken, another was tilted, another was overturned, and the wire connecting the tops of the concrete pillars was loose. These, the two boys claimed, had been pushed over by the UFO.

At first, all the teachers at the elementary school, including Miyoshi Ueda, Masato and Katsuhiro’s homeroom teacher, thought it was a prank by them.

However, the two boys spoke so earnestly about their strange experience that the teachers thought something had really happened to them and informed a reporter from the Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun (Yamanashi Daily News) about the incident through the principal of the elementary school.

Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun Head Office Building: Yamanashi Bunka Kaikan
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With the help of the Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun, a detailed field survey was immediately conducted.

In the vineyard where the boys witnessed the UFO, one of the concrete pillars supporting the grape vines was broken and one was severely damaged. Also, the wire netting placed on top of those pillars for the vines to crawl on was spread wide as if it were loaded with something heavy.

Kazuo Hayashi, head of the Osaka branch of the Japan Space Phenomena Society (JSPS), investigated two broken concrete pillars in a vineyard two weeks after the Kofu incident.

The concrete pillar in the vineyard that was allegedly broken by the landing of the UFO.

Field Investigation Report by Minamiyama on the Landing Site One Month After the Incident

About a month after the Kofu Incident, Hiroshi Minamiyama, a Japanese writer and researcher of strange phenomena went with Masato and Katsuhiro to investigate the vineyard where the UFO was believed to have landed.

Hiroshi Minamiyama (far right) had Masato and Katsuhiro draw the size of the UFO on the ground during their investigation of the UFO landing site one month after the Kofu incident.

The vineyard was lined with concrete pillars, which were used to support the vines during the growing season. In addition, the wires were stretched in a mesh-like pattern through the top of each concrete pillar. According to Hiroshi Minamiyama’s research, the average height of those concrete pillars was about 170 centimeters (about 5.6 feet), and the spacing between the concrete pillars was just under 2.2 meters (about 7.2 feet).

Minamiyama also had Masato and Katsuhiro draw the approximate size of the UFO they had witnessed on the ground of the vineyard. Based on the size of the drawings on the ground, the diameter of the UFO was determined to be about 4.8 to just over 5 meters (about 15.7 to 16.4 feet).

Comparing these figures, Minamiyama noticed that there were inevitably contradictory points.

Where did the UFO, which is about 5 meters in diameter, enter the vineyard and how did it land in the middle of the vineyard without knocking over the surrounding concrete pillars, which have a spacing of only about 2 meters?

Results of Radioactivity Measurements at UFO Landing Site

Susumu Maeda, a teacher at the electrical department of Yamanashi Prefectural Kizan Technical High School (closed in March 1999) in Kofu City, measured the radioactivity at the UFO landing site. Maeda had a national qualification as a radiation protection supervisor (Type 1), and when he heard about the Kofu Incident, he decided to measure the radioactivity at the UFO landing site.

In an interview with Minamiyama, Maeda explained his motivation for taking radiation measurements at the UFO landing site as follows.

At first, I thought the children’s stories of what they witnessed were ridiculous, but I thought that if they were true, I might learn something.
So I started measuring radiation with a light heart, thinking that it would be a good way to practice my radiation measurement skills.

Thus, together with the students of the science research club of Kizan High School, Maeda measured the radioactivity at the UFO landing site.

According to Maeda, natural radioactivity (background radiation) from natural radionuclides such as potassium 40, uranium 238, and carbon-14 is always present in the natural environment, albeit in small amounts. Their half-lives vary depending on the radionuclide, but in most cases, these natural radionuclides are quantitatively stable because their half-lives are quite long, or even if their half-lives are short, they are widely present in nature and are constantly replaced by diffusion in the air.

However, it is known that when such a place with only background radiation is temporarily exposed to radioactivity due to non-natural or artificial causes, the overall radiation dose in that place not only increases but also decays rapidly in a short period of time.

Maeda collected about 40 soil samples from various parts of the vineyard where the UFO allegedly landed, and measured them with a Geiger counter in the laboratory at Kizan High School for about a month. The results of radiation measurements showed that these soil samples did indeed have higher levels of radiation than natural radioactivity, but they also showed significant decay, which is characteristic of artificial radioactivity.

Although there were some differences among the samples, Maeda estimated that the samples contained radionuclides with a half-life of about 15 days based on the measurement results. Maeda then commissioned the analysis to a friend of his who worked at a certain research institute related to nuclear power generation, hoping that by measuring with a more precise scintillation counter, he would be able to determine the nuclides present. As a result, the following radioactivity decay curve graph was obtained.

Radioactivity decay curves of soil samples collected from the UFO landing site.
(1) and (2) are the graphs of the radioactivity measurement data of soil samples taken at the UFO landing site on April 5, 1975, 41 days after the incident.
(3) and (4) on May 31, 1975, 97 days after the incident.
(2) and (4) are the graphs of the background radioactivity, and (1) and (3) are the graphs of the detected artificial radioactivity.

These graphs show that the difference between the artificial radioactivity and the background radioactivity is larger for the data obtained 41 days after the incident than for the data obtained 97 days after the incident.

Maeda published his detailed analysis report in the journal of the Japan Space Phenomena Society (JSPS), “Mikakunin Hikou Buttai (Unidentified Flying Objects)” No.7 (1977). In the report, Maeda stated the following.

The first beta ray measurement detected a weak beta ray with a half-life of about 15 days. Convinced that this was not natural, we run a pulse wave height analyzer (scintillation counter) to determine the energy. For each of the 32 energy values detected, the corresponding nuclide was identified. For each of the other 23 energy values, the corresponding nuclide was also identified with a small error.

These radionuclides were created when atoms such as iron, lead, calcium, rubidium, and chrome that exist on earth, were irradiated (radiated) are transformed into other radionuclides. The types of radiation that these nuclides received were alpha, deuteron, neutron, and proton radiation.

However, due to the delay in the start of the measurements, the half-life measurement of the gamma rays was considered to have a large error, so we mainly focused on the detected energy values.

If the absolute value of the radioactivity were higher, it would be possible to tell whether this radioactivity is the radiation emitted by the UFO, or the fallout from the nuclear tests on Earth, or the radiation of the surface elements. However, we can say that there is still a question about the detected energy values.

Incidentally, on February 20, 1975, three days before the Kofu Incident, it was confirmed that nuclear tests had been conducted by the Soviet Union in Degelen, Semipalatinsk Oblast, Republic of Kazakhstan.

The 18,000 km² expanse of the Semipalatinsk Test Site (indicated in red), attached to Kurchatov (along the Irtysh river), and near Semey, as well as Karagandy, and Nur-Sultan. The site comprised an area the size of Wales.

However, the distance between Kazakhstan and Japan is 5,800 kilometers (about 3,600 miles), and the fallout from these tests seems unlikely. In addition, the half-lives of cesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90, plutonium-239, etc., produced by nuclear tests are cesium-137 (about 30 years), iodine-131 (about 8 days), strontium-90 (about 29 years), and plutonium-239 (about 24,000 years). These are very different from the radionuclides with a half-life of about 15 days obtained from soil samples taken by Maeda from the UFO landing site.

Thus, Maeda’s radiation measurements were noted as physical evidence of the UFO landing.

Other Reports of UFO Sightings in Kofu City on the Same Day

UFO Sighting Report by Kimio Atsushiba

By the way, the two boys and their mothers were not the only ones who witnessed the UFO in Kofu city at that time. When the incident was widely reported to the public through the mass media, there were several reports of UFO and alien sightings in Kofu City on the same day.

One of those sighting reports came from Kimio Atsushiba (34 years old at the time), the janitor of an environmental center located about 700 meters (760 yards) east-southeast of the vineyards.

Kimio Atsushiba (right) and his wife Miko (left)

According to Atsushiba, he was inside the environmental center around 6:30 p.m. on that day when the boys witnessed the UFO.

The above image is for illustration purposes.

For some reason dogs were barking strangely, so Atsushiba went outside. When Atsushiba went to the factory to check on the situation and returned, he found a yellow luminous object flying in the eastern sky.

The object disappeared behind a building. Startled, Atsushiba rushed to a place where he could see the other side of the roof but lost sight of the luminous object. Then, Atsushiba looked toward the west and saw the object.

Atsushiba looked at the object for a while, thinking that there was something strange flying around. According to Atsushiba, the object was brighter and bigger than the first star, and it was not an airplane. The luminous object was shining and moving slowly in the direction of the north and disappeared behind the roof of a building with a tail of light trailing behind it.

Later, a government official told Atsushiba that he had seen the same object, saying that it was probably a meteor. At first, Atsushiba thought the object might be a meteor, but then he thought it was too strange to be a meteor.

The next day, however, the story of Masato and Katsuhiro’s UFO sighting came up, and Atsushiba thought it was indeed a UFO that he had seen.

UFO Sighting Report by Yumiko Dobashi

Another UFO sighting on the same day was that of a girl named Yumiko Dobashi, who lived in Hinode Complex, also witnessed a UFO from the balcony of her house that night.

UFO Sighting Report by Ichiro Minegishi

Furthermore, a reporter from the local Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun newspaper interviewed residents living near the UFO sighting site and found several witnesses who saw the UFO on the night of the incident.

One is that Ichiro Minegishi, who was a second grader at Yamashiro Elementary School like Masato and Katsuhiro, saw a UFO at the same time Masato and Katsuhiro saw a UFO on the day of the incident.

Ichiro and his parents saw a blue-white luminous body moving back and forth in the night sky in the direction of Employment Promotion Housing from a car driving on National Route 20, about one kilometer north of the landing site.

UFO Sighting Report by Genshin Saito

The other sighting report is that at around 7:00 p.m. that night, Genshin Saito, a chief priest of Jokoji Temple in Shimo-Imai-cho, Kofu City, saw a blue-white luminous object about the size of a ping-pong ball in the sky south of the temple.

According to Saito, the luminous object flew in a zigzag pattern, swooped down, and disappeared.

Alien Sighting Report by Midori Sato

As another report, around the same time the UFO was sighted, Midori Sato, an insurance saleswoman, happened to be passing through the same area as the sighting site.

Sato told her husband about her strange experience that day.
Her husband told her,

If you say such a foolish thing, you will only be ridiculed.

So she decided not to tell anyone else about what happened that day.

However, seven years later, in 1982, when Sato told people she happened to meet on a trip about this mysterious experience, they advised her that she should definitely disclose it, and she decided to send a letter to Nippon Television.

As a result, her mysterious experience became a major topic of conversation when it was publicized on Nippon Television’s late-night program “11PM”.

According to Sato, before evening, at around 5:30 p.m., she was driving south on a narrow road from Masutsubo-cho to Kami-cho, where the incident occurred, toward Asahi’s house, the next destination for collection of insurance money. At that time, she was in a hurry to collect the money because she did not want it to be late in the evening.

On the way there, Sato heard what sounded like a bang, like a big fireworks boom. Then she saw two children about 130 to 140 centimeters (about 4.5 feet) tall with dark skin on their faces and hands at a crossroads in the middle of a narrow street. Sato wondered if the children were dressed up as black people.

Sato honked her car horn, but the children did not move off the road. So she stopped the car and pulled over to one side of the road and tried to drive slowly past the children. Then one of the children put his hand on the windshield and came face to face with her.

Sato was surprised by the bizarre appearance of the child she saw through the windshield.
The child’s face and hands were so wrinkled and eerie that they seemed out of this world.

The alien she saw certainly resembled the one in the Kofu incident in that it had a deeply wrinkled face, but there were many discrepancies, including the lack of large ears, eyes, and fangs in its mouth.

However, since the sighting was very brief, she says that her memory of other details is vague and she does not remember them clearly.

Sketch of an alien that Sato claims to have encountered.

Sato was in a hurry to collect the money, so she drove past the child at the slowest possible speed. She then saw the other child’s face, which also had the exact same dark, wrinkled, eerie appearance.

After Sato passed the crossroads, she continued driving south down the road on the east side of Hinode Complex, when a group of men and women with children came running from the road ahead.

They somehow had sticks in their hands and stopped Sato’s car with their arms outstretched. The children were buzzing around.

Sato rolled down her car window and asked them,

What’s going on?

One of them asked her,

Did you see a UFO?

But, she had seen no UFOs and it never occurred to her that the wrinkled black children she had just seen were aliens, so Sato replied,

No, I don’t know.

And they ran past her car to the street behind her.

Sato then hurriedly drove directly to the house where she was to collect the money.

As described above, the many reports of UFO/alien sightings in Kofu City on the same day make it clear that the Kofu Incident was not the result of the two boys’ delusions or fabrications, but that “something actually happened”.

Of course, all of the above reports are often taken up by Japanese UFO-positive groups and may be biased. In fact, it should be noted that the articles and videos on the Kofu Incident that have been circulating outside of Japan are biased, as they are all based on information from Japanese UFO-positive groups.

However, in this article, I will try to be as objective and fair as possible in presenting not only the positive information but also the negative information.

You are the final judge of the truth of the Kofu Incident.

So, in a later article, I would like to introduce the negative view of the Kofu incident by Japanese UFO skeptics.

References

1. Tsutomu Seki (May 1973). Kera-murani Ochita Enban (The Flying Saucer That Fell on Kera Village),Michi no Hoshi wo Motomete (Searching for Unknown Stars), 187-194, Sankei Shobo.

2. Shinichiro Namiki, Kazuo Hayashi (Field Investigator) (April 1973).– JSPS Special Report –Soratobu Enban Ikedori Misui!! Kochishi Keramura de Okotta Kisou Tengaina Enban Soudou …… ??? (Attempted Live Capture of Flying Saucer! A Bizarre Flying Saucer Incident in Kera Village, Kochi City …… ???) Unidentified Flying Objects – Information and Research – Vol.1, No. 1, 48-50, Japan Space Phenomena Society (JSPS).

3. Mokuyou Special Gendai no Kaiki Tuikyu Daisandan Utyujinwa Tikyuni Kite Iru!! (Thursday Special: Modern Weirdness, Pursuit #3: Aliens are Coming to Earth!!), Nippon Television Network Corporation, broadcast on October 10, 1974.

4. Shusaku Endo (1976). Kera-cho no Soratobu Enban (Flying Saucer in Kera Town), Boku ha Koukishin no Katamari (I Am a Curious Man), 36-44, Shinchosha.

5. Junichi Yaoi (July 1978). Zenkoku UFO Mokugeki Tahatsu Chitai (UFO Sighting Zones in Japan), 272-277. FutamiShobo

6. Shinichiro Namiki, Tanbo de Chugakuseiga Kogata Enban wo Hokaku Nazo no ‘Kera UFO Jikenno Ima wo Ou!!(Junior High School Students Captured a Small Flying Saucer in Rice Fields: Now Tracing the Mysterious ‘Kera UFO Incident!!’), MU Magazine, April 2014 issue, 172-177, Gakken.

7. Hiroshi Yamamoto, Kazuo Shimizu, and Ryutaro Minakami (July 2005). Tondemo UFO Nyumon (Introduction to Ridiculous UFO Cases and Researchers), Yosensha.

8. Junichi Yaoi (June 2006). Yaoi Junichi no UFO Taizen (Junichi Yaoi’s Complete UFO Collection), 254-256, Lyonsha.

9. Kenichi Nishimoto (May 2009). Kochi-ken Kera-cho “UFO Hokaku Jiken” no Shogeki (The Impact of the “UFO Capture Incident” in Kera Town, Kochi Prefecture), Nihon “Kaiki” Taizen (The Complete Book of Japanese “Weirdness”), 239-253, Million Shuppan

10. Shinichiro Namiki (Feburary 2010). Mikakunin Hikou Buttai UFO Taizen (The Complete Guide to Unidentified Flying Objects UFOs), 227-233, Gakken Plus.

11. Miyabi (November 8, 2015), Kera Incident, UFO Jikenbo (UFO Case Files), http://ufojikenbo.blogspot.com/2015/11/kera.html

12. Kenji Sato, Radio Adventure, Kikai Isan (Odd World Heritage), NHK Radio 1, broadcast on May 3, 2016.

13. MYSTERY PHOTONICLE (May 2016), 40-41, Digital Ultra Project

14. Tatsuya Honjo, ASIOS (August 2017). UFO Jiken Chronicle (Chronicle of UFO Incidents), 138-145, Saizusha.

15. Kozo Niwa, Kazuo Hayashi (June 2016). Nihon no Juyo UFO Jiken: Kochi Keramura UFO Hokaku Jiken (Important UFO Incident in Japan: Kochi Kera Village UFO Capture Incident), https://ameblo.jp/entry-12168532537.html

16. Ryoma Mulder (November 2002). Kochi Kogata UFO Hokaku Jiken Tenmatsu Report by Ryoma Mulder (Report on Capture of a Small UFO in Kochi by Ryoma Mulder), http://www.youneeds.com/xfiles/ufo/kela_ufo_catcher.htm

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otakupapa

A dad blogger who loves manga, anime, games. In this blog, I will introduce amazing Japanese spirituality and philosophy.

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Kofu Incident: A Creepy Alien Got off a UFO to a Vineyard and Tapped a Japanese Boy on the Shoulder in 1975 [Part 3]

Physical Evidence Supporting the Kofu Incident

Field Investigation Report by School Teachers at the UFO Landing Site After the Incident

Field Investigation Report by Minamiyama on the Landing Site One Month After the Incident

Results of Radioactivity Measurements at UFO Landing Site